Mount Baker, WA, from Boundary Bay
High tide was at 9.30 pm on Sunday so we cycled down late in the afternoon to check out the shorebirds. Huge flocks of Western Sandpipers and Black-bellied Plovers, numbering in the thousands, were being chased around by a large Peregrine Falcon. The flocks swooped and swirled over the incoming water, evading the predator. As the tide came in, the shorebirds were pushed closer to shore. Among the flocks were a few Least Sandpipers, feeding further up the shore, as well as some Dowitchers, Killdeer, and Semipalmated Plovers. A lone Spotted Sandpiper teetered on the edge of the ditch gate at 96th Street. 112th Street was uncharacteristically quiet, with the main flock well to the west, but a female Belted Kingfisher was perched on the new waterworks at Oliver Slough.
The views to the south and east were particularly clear, with the sun low in the west, and a rain storm looming. All the Gulf and San Juan Islands were clear to the south, and we could see the Olympic peninsula mountains behind them, and several layers of mountains in the Cascades. Mount Baker was her usual beautiful snow-capped self.
Boundary Bay on a summer evening
